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-Review of “Escape” and “Mr and Mrs Percy Weasley”
-#################################################
-
-:date: 2017-12-14
-:category: faith
-:tags: review, HarryPotter, blogComment
-
-(Update later: this review was written in December 2017, when
-the latter story was somewhere around chapter 24; it would be
-probably too self-centric to think, that the author read my
-review, but the fact is that the later chapters of the story
-seem to address some of my objections.)
-
-There is a biblical verse from Galatians 3:3: “Are you so 
-foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected 
-by the flesh?” What I mean is that “Escape_” and “`Mr and Mrs 
-Percy Weasley`_” started as one of the best fanfictions I found 
-anywhere.  Obviously, from person who writes fanfiction around 
-the classical literature (namely “Pride and Prejudice”), I expect 
-better literary quality than your average fifteen-year inserting 
-herself as the fourth member of The Golden Trio on the run for 
-horcruxes. Unfortunately, with the contiuation of both stories, 
-it seems to me that the author lapsed more and more into some of 
-the worst stereotypes in the genre.
-
-First of all, before saying anything else, I really liked Mr and
-Mrs-to-be Percy Weasley themselves. It is really delight to read
-their story (and of course, it doesn’t hurt they slip for weekend
-in Prague, where I am from :)). I really liked they both knew
-they are dancing around some elephants in the room, but they so
-much wanted to work together, they were willing to trust each
-other even against the evidence, which would cause distrust.
-I really liked Percy discovering joys of the Muggle world (and
-I really hope he will eventually buy that set of the sixteenth
-century goblets for Audrey, now when he can explain her how come
-they are so well preserved).
-
-I was less enchanted by Harry & Hermione. Even ignoring the 
-problems with the Harmony ship [#]_ (about which later), they 
-both seemed to me so perfect, so Mary/Marty Sue (of course, Mary 
-Sue must be half-Muggle otherwise the author and reader couldn’t 
-identify with her easily enough), that I lost most interest in 
-them. Except, of course, Hermione being a cat is the only saving 
-grace for her persona.
-
-This being a Harmony story, it seems that every alternative 
-universe shipping inevitably leads to bashing persons which are 
-really likeable in the books, most usually Ron Weasley. It seemed 
-in the beginning of “Escape”, that this author managed to avoid
-the trait, but it goes downhill pretty fast, and in the end Mrs
-Weasley, Arthur, and of course Ron are sworn enemies of the good
-guys and gals. And it is happily overlooked that many relational
-troubles which blow to their face in the end are caused by the
-unexplicable relational idiocy of Harry & Hermione. Why in the
-world, they haven’t contacted Ron, their supposedly best friend,
-immediately after they got means of communications (mirrors) from
-the Weasley twins? I like the Weasley twins in the story, but why
-couldn‘t be Ron included as well? Couldn’t the twins smuggle one
-mirror to the castle? And still they haven’t bothered to send him
-a mirror when they met Ginny, Neville, and Luna in Hogsmead? Of
-course, the only reason seems to be that the author may indulge
-more in the Ron-bashing (there is no way the Ron from books was
-not fed up with Lavender after few weeks of snogging; and
-actually, he broke up with her because he looked for more in
-books, not necessarily because of Hermione; that is more the
-movie Ron again).
-
-Harry and Hermione spent five years (or at least summers) in the 
-Weasley household. And suddenly the Weasley parents don’t deserve 
-a joint visit from Harry & Hermione before the slandering 
-interviews are published? If Molly Weasley as we know her from 
-books would slam the door in their face, I would immediately ship 
-her to St. Mungo, because some serious disease must be affecting 
-her brain. That is not Molly we know from the books. And I just 
-cannot make myself believe that Weasleys’ would be that 
-prejudiced against Muggles. Ignorant, of course, but not 
-unwilling to be explained.
-
-When they are repeatedly accused they gave up on the wizarding 
-world and went Muggle all the way, Harry & Hermione never face 
-these accussations by explaining what’s going on, by explaining 
-that they actually finished their magical education already, they 
-don’t even boast how many N.E.W.T.s they got, they just blow up.  
-They behave like rebellious stupid teenagers, who they actually 
-are, demanding trust from everybody, explaining to nobody, and 
-then they are supported in this stupidity by supposedly mature 
-and wise Grangers. We’ll get to this more later.
-
-Because next we have to deal with the persona of Albus Dumbledore
-as described in the stories. I am the last one to declare 
-Professor Dumbledore to be perfect. There are obvious problems in 
-his behavior. Some of them mentioned by JKR in the books 
-themselves (excessive secrecty, insufficient information and 
-training), some are not. For example, there is a situation where 
-absolutely everything depends on Harry learning Occlumency 
-properly, and his teacher is not adult enough to get over Harry’s 
-father bullying him when they were teenagers. So, there are no 
-results of such teaching. What does Dumbledore do to remedy the 
-situation? Nothing, just waits until somebody gets killed and 
-Harry can blame himself for it. What’s wrong with him? [#]_ 
-I believe that both Professors Dumbledore and Snape are 
-reponsible for the death of Sirius Black (perhaps they should be 
-even criminally responsible for neglect) more than anybody else 
-on The Light Side (the biggest share of guilt goes to
-Mrs Lestrange, of course).
-
-Having said that, I just cringe when I see how Singularoddities 
-deals poorly with description of flawed personalities. How it is 
-difficult to describe somebody who honestly fights for The Right 
-Thing™ his whole life, he is willing sacrifice absolutely 
-everything for the fight, and yet sometimes he forgets he is not 
-permitted to demand same sacrifices from others (“The only person 
-who can die for my ideals is me.” Karl Popper), or perhaps even 
-how sometimes he fights more to eradicate Evil than to promote 
-Goodness and Love. The author is not able to keep the hero 
-balanced, so although he/she starts well, more the story 
-progresses more it is black-and-white, and more and more it is 
-hard to distinguish Albus Dumbledore from Tom Riddle. And because 
-it is not enough, we have to have very light Snape (see above, 
-nobody questions his part in the death of Sirius), and very very 
-dark Weasley family (older part). It somehow looks like all 
-authority persons from the book are deemed bad, and somehow bad 
-persons are now good?  Like …
-
-I know what it feels like! When I was trying to understand what 
-is the worldview behind those two stories, I started to think 
-about the Stage Three from M. Scott Peck’s `The Road Less 
-Traveled`_ (nicely summarized in video by my former pastor `Dave 
-Schmelzer`_). The stories are all about rebellion against the 
-authorities. It is all about an inversion, negation of 
-traditional values without actual wisdom, which for me is in 
-synthesis of the real personality, authenticity and true values.  
-All those who were positive authorities in the HP canon 
-(Dumbledore, Weasleys) are suddenly bad, and not only bad there 
-is almost nothing positive mentioned about them. All those who 
-were marginalised, in submission, or outright morally suspicious 
-(Grangers, Professors McGonagall, Snape; it is interesting that 
-Professor Flitwick is nowhere to be found) are suddenly main 
-heroes. Also, the main purpose of adults (especially Grangers) is 
-to validate youngsters’ (Harry & Hermione, Fred & George) in 
-their ideas, not to bring much of their own, and certainly not to 
-bring balance and wisdom. Whole story sounds very much like 
-a college student ranting against his parents.
-
-That also includes Percy, but here I have to take exception from 
-the rule: his persona is written really well, I really suspect 
-that he made some huge mistakes (even Kingsley suggests that he 
-was originally meant exactly as Weasleys were afraid he was 
-— a spy on Weasleys and Harry), but he is really an interesting 
-person. Well done.
-
-I like both of these stories (probably more “Mr and Mrs Percy
-Weasley”, but obviously the second take is better than the first
-attempt), they are probably the best AU stories of the Harry
-Potter universe I have read so far (if it has not been obvious
-already, I prefer canon-based stories), but all the good things
-on these stories, makes me even more frustrated with things which
-could be so much better. Oh well.
-
-.. [#] supporting Harry/Harmione pairing
-
-.. [#] Also, a nitpick: what the hell is wrong with you to leave 
-   one year old boy overnight outside in the English November? 
-   Are you too coward to admit to Petunia her sister died under 
-   your command, so you are not able to press a buzzer? Or 
-   perhaps the grooming (I am not sure I believe that one) was 
-   just Plan B, in case the horcrux was not eliminated by Harry 
-   dying from exposure?
-   
-   Just for fun: I have found monthly weather report for UK for 
-   October 1981 and `November 1981`_
-
-.. _Escape:
-   https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11916243/
-
-.. _`Mr and Mrs Percy Weasley`:
-   https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12373273/
-
-.. _`The Road Less Traveled`:
-   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._Scott_Peck#The_Road_Less_Traveled
-   
-.. _`Dave Schmelzer`:
-   https://youtu.be/bHyqDGAiEpA
-
-.. _`November 1981`:
-    https://digital.nmla.metoffice.gov.uk/IO_707667cb-2339-4454-bc5a-c20f638bbd92/